Concerned members of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Bayelsa have called on the party’s national leadership to sanction party members engaged in anti-party activities at the state’s Nov. 11 governorship election.
Speaking with newsmen on Friday in Abuja, spokesman of the forum, Dr Otiti Etionumeya, said some party members betrayed it to an opposition party at the election for personal gains.
“We demand that all APC members in Bayelsa known to have engaged in anti-party activities during the November election be severely sanctioned.
“This will serve as a deterrent to others; otherwise we may just have legitimised anti-party activities in the Bayelsa chapter of the APC.
“If the members did not betray the party, how does one explain the audacious cancellation of election results in Ogbia, Nembe, Brass, and Southern Ijaw Local Government Areas?
“These are areas where our great party had clear lead until the unfathomable happened,’’ he said.
He said the election was neither free nor fair as it was characterized by intimidation, violence, and manipulation of results in favor of an opposition party.
Etionumeya appealed to the party’s national leadership to ensure that it spared nothing at ensuring that the stolen mandate given to APC’s governorship candidate, Mr Timipre Sylva and his running mate was restored.
He noted that APC in Bayelsa could no longer afford to be the sacrificial lamb in every governorship election.
He stressed that wielding the big stick against party stalwarts who worked against its success was the needed pill to save the APC from disintegration in Bayelsa.
Etionumeya implored Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, the party’s national chairman not to shy away from doing the needful.